I grew up in a small business family. I know that, in business, your ethics are the only thing that matters. No one wants to do business with someone who can't be trusted. Why should politicians have a different standard? If anything, our standards should be higher.

Yet just hours into the first session of the 115th Congress, my Republican colleagues attempted to execute a dead-of-night plot to gut our independent investigative watchdog. Thankfully, thousands of calls from constituents poured into Hill offices, and their effort to shutter congressional ethics was scrapped.

However, this first-day attempt shows what's likely to happen in Congress for the next two years.

We are already seeing it happen as Senate Republicans rush to approve Trump's nominees without completed ethics paperwork. It's clear my colleagues have forgotten the importance of ethics. They need more calls to remind them.